Bears

11/12/2013

FORT WORTH, Texas - Gary Patterson does not agree, but the two previous times his teams' chances of playing in a bowl game were better than what he is dealing with today.

What he and his team were facing in 2001 and 2004 were much "easier" than the set of circumstances he has in front of him. Again, he does not agree.

As it stands today, TCU will miss a bowl for only the second time since he took over as head coach in 2001, and third time since 1997. The Horned Frogs (4-6, 2-5 Big 12) must win their final two games to keep their postseason streak alive.

The odds ain't great.

TCU plays at Kansas State (5-4, 3-3) on Saturday in Manhattan; the Frogs are a 10.5-point underdogs. It finishes the season against Baylor; chances are decent the Frogs will be an underdog in that game, too. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps.

Here is a look at the two other times in the Patterson era when TCU's status of bowl eligibility was in doubt, and how it went:

2001In Gary Patterson’s first season as head coach, TCU was 4-5 after a 38-17 loss against Alabama-Birmingham on Nov. 10. In the Frogs' next game, they upset No. 17 Louisville, 37-22, to even its record at 5-5.TCU had to upset Southern Miss to secure a bowl bid, which it did with a 14-12 win. The Frogs finished the season 6-6 after losing to Texas A&M in the Gallery Furniture Bowl.

2004TCU dropped to 4-5 after losing 55-28 at No. 12 Louisville on Nov. 10. The next game, the Frogs defeated Southern Miss to even their record to 5-5 and needed one win for a bowl. In the regular-season finale against Tulane, the Frogs lost 35-31 to finish 5-6. It is the only time in Patterson’s tenure the team missed a bowl game.

I asked GP if there are any comparisons between these teams, and his answer was injuries. TCU's offensive line has been depleted by injury, a quitter, and guys who aren't good enough.

Other than the bowl appearance bonus in their contract, what no college coach wants to miss out on a bowl are the extra practices for the underclassmen. I asked Gary if that was a concern, which he said it is not.

"One of our best recruiting years we weren’t working on bowl practices. We had one of our best recruiting classes," GP said. "There are plusses and minuses to all of it. Right now I don’t see two ways that would make me happy."

11/05/2013

Way before there was RGIII and Bryce Petty or Kevin Kolb there was a guy like Kelan Luker.

Luker was one of Art Briles' quarterbacks at Stephenville High School in the '90s. He scored points and threw the ball all over the map much in the same way RGIII, and now Petty, do at Baylor. Outside of Texas, you likely had never heard of Art Briles or Kelan Luker.

For the past few years the college football world has been enamored with the success Briles has enjoyed at Baylor, but he was doing the thing in Texas high schools for more than a decade.

Beyond that of schemes Luker has an idea why so many quarterbacks have been so successful playing for Briles.

"He allowed you to be a part of that creativity," Luker said in a phone interview. "He makes it really fun. He gave you a lot of responsibility, and not to be afraid. Coaches normally like control, and that was the big thing - Art was not about control. He wants things to be fast and entertaining. He likes to entertain fans."

Back in the '90s, what jumped out about Luker was not that he could play but the amount of trust his high school coach put on his head and right arm. This was not a typical high school offense that ran it on first and second down and then threw it if they had to. Briles designed a sophisticated passing offense for high school that required a tremendous amount of practice, and trust, on 16 to 18-year olds to both create and find space.

Luker is 32 and a high school quarterbacks coach in Florida. He watches Baylor as much as he can, and said he spoke with Art Briles this week.

"I watch them and it's the same offense. I think we had more formations back then," Luker said.

For the guys who played for Briles at high school or college, they all racked up massive numbers. It's the same thing as the QBs at Texas Tech when then coach Mike Leach had his best teams. And it always begs the question, is it the quarterback, or the system?

"It's the system because it is so unconventional," Luker said. "He will put you in a position to be successful. You have to give the quarterbacks credit but he is the guy behind it, including me. I don't know the word to use but he was an integral part in my success. He just does the same thing over and over and over with different guys. It's self evident."

10/28/2013

It took a little while, but it's on for Baylor. Because this team is even better than RGIII's final season in Waco, this should be even more fun than their memorable run of 2011. RGIII's Baylor team was not as deep, or as balanced, as this crew and not a threat to the national scene. He was a threat to individual awards, but his team was not a global threat.

The same program that just a few years ago was aiming to merely become bowl eligible is now a major player at the top.

In 2011, Baylor was a cute little story led by charming quarterback and a soft-drawled football coach with crazy game plans. They were adorable. They finished third in the Big 12 that season, which was Camelot in Waco.

In 2013, Baylor is a genuine threat to college football's upper establishment.

This is the best team Baylor has had since ... integration?

This final month should be a lot of fun, a lot different, but doable.

* Baylor is 7-0 against opponents that are a combined 24-29. The first win was against Wofford, which is an FCS team.* Four of their next five games are against teams with winning records, beginning Thursday in Waco when Oklahoma visits.* If you recall, the last time OU visited Waco was one of the most enjoyable games of the 2011 season - on November 19, 2011, RGIII passed for 479 yards in a 45-38 upset win against the No. 5 Sooners. His 34-yard TD pass to Terrance Williams with eight seconds remaining won the game. OU gave up a school-record 616 yards to Baylor in that game ... which feels like what Baylor is averaging this season.

* The combined record of the five remaining opponents is 28-10.

Since going undefeated is statistically just so hard the safe bet is to assume that the Bears will get popped in this final month. The best guess is at Oklahoma State; the Cowboys are good, and it's on the road.

The Bears are good enough to pull this off, to not only win the Big 12 but reach a BCS title game.

How ironic - in their final season at Floyd Casey Stadium, which witnessed countless bad football games and bad football teams - the Bears are having their best season maybe ever.

Here is a fun walk down memory lane ... (sorry - it's Matt Millen on the analysis - nothing I can do about that).

10/23/2013

The good people at Baylor arranged for its most famous alum - Washington Politically Incorrect Nickname quarterback Robert Griffin III - for a quick teleconference this morning to talk Baylor Bears football.

RGIII is a lot like the rest of us (only a much better quarterback) - he is impressed at the success of his Bears this season. It is indeed a good time to be a Baptist. Baylor is 6-0, 3-0 in the Big 12, No. 8 in the BCS poll and No. 6 in the AP Poll.

Three things from Mr. Griffin III to note:

1. RGIII is full of it when talking about playing Kansas, regardless of his personal history there.Baylor plays at Kansas on Saturday. The charitable people of Las Vegas have the Bears as a 34.5 point favorite over the mighty Jayhawks; seems a bit low.

The last time Baylor played at Kansas was Nov. 12, 2011 when the Bears had to rally for a last-minute 31-30 win in OT against yet another bad Jayhawks team. Baylor scored three fourth quarter TDs to force OT. It was Baylor's first conference win in more than a year.

"You can't fall asleep at a place like Kansas," RGIII said. "It's a tough place to play."

He's wrong. Baylor was dead asleep that game and still won. Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas is the easiest place in the world to play as a visitor.

2. Baylor can sleep against Kansas because unlike RGIII's last team this team has a defense.RGIII and his former teammates have noticed this Baylor team can defend it a little bit better. "Uhhh ... yeah me and (former Baylor WR) Kendal Wright and other former Baylor players talk about it - their defense is much; we could be bitter or jealous but at the end of the day we're happy for them," RGIII said. "By the time we left the depth was there. The depth is there on defense compared to when I got there as a freshman."

3. Baylor is scoring points with a purpose.Put it this way - a lot of parents may be tempted to write a nasty letter to Baylor about bullying.The Bears average an NCAA-best 64.7 points per game.RGIII believes that unlike his better teams that could score and score, Briles tapped the brakes for a reason. He has not this season."Let's just say Coach (Art Briles) wasn't doing that when we were there," RGIII said. "He wouldn't let us score 70. It's not to embarrass teams. It's to improve their own standing."

10/06/2013

To all the Phil Bennett haters of the world - and there were just so many of you - eat it. The Baylor defensive coordinator, who was all but thrown into the Brazos River one year ago for his defense, is now suddenly not such a bad coach. He just needed a few players.

Baylor's offense is receiving all of the love for its absurd numbers:

- 4-0 record - 70.5 points per game (1st in FBS)- 347.3 rushing yards per game (2nd in FBS)- 432.3 passing yards per game (1st in FBS)

Easily lost in all of these PlayStation15 numbers is that fact that someone is getting the other team off the field in the football game.

Baylor's defense, so wretched one year ago, is making stops. Granted, they are stopping some bad college football offenses but until Saturday's garbage time against West Virginia did some of the numbers start to look human.

The Bears' defense ranks 17th in FBS, allowing an average of 321.3 yards per game. Opponents are scoring 16.3 points per game, which was inflated greatly by West Virginia's 21 fourth-quarter points on Saturday when the game was gone.

Under head coach Art Briles the Bears are going to be an offensive team, but all they need is to have a decent defense and, especially given the nature of the Big 12 this season, they can win this conference.

Credit Briles for sticking with Bennett. Credit Bennett for building a defense that can make a few stops. That's all Baylor needs.

Of course, it's about to get real for Baylor. These stupid numbers figure to stop a little beginning Oct. 12 when the Bears finally leave Waco for a game when they play at Kansas State.

Should Baylor win in Manhattan - never a given - they should be 7-0 when they host Oklahoma on November 7 in Waco for what could be for first place in the Big 12.

They will be in that position because of Briles' offense, and Bennett's defense.

10/02/2013

FORT WORTH, Texas - For decades one of the worst Division I men's basketball coaching jobs in the nation was Baylor. TCU was not much better, if not worse.

The students did not much care to attend the games. There was zero tradition. About the only thing that separated the two was that Baylor was stuck with the Dave Bliss scandal while TCU just lost.

Baylor got lucky when head coach Scott Drew figured out a way to recruit big-time Division I talent to Waco, and the Bears have become the best team in Texas over the past few years.

Only now in his second-season can TCU head coach Trent Johnson say he has a good job. He would never say it, but only until the school finally elected to spend serious dollars on the program did he have a genuine chance.

Now that TCU is in the process of raising money to re-do the badly out-dated Daniel-Meyer Coliseum can Johnson sell something other than a pretty campus, pretty girls, etc. The school is making an investment in a program that for years it casually cared about. TCU wants to make its basketball program a bigger revenue producer, and the only way to do that is win.

While many (me included) were skeptical about TCU's decision to hire Johnson away from LSU, it does look like this has the makings of a hire that can work. Landing a major-league recruiting class in his first full year to do so should give everyone who even casually cares about this team a reason to watch.

It was not necessarily a matter of Johnson's ability to coach but rather attract the type of talent necessary to compete in the Big 12. You can be a wonderful X & O coach but if the talent does not come in high D-I basketball it does not matter.

When Johnson signed freshmen Karviar Shepherd, Brandon Parrish and Hudson Price he demonstrated he can get the kid.

Shepherd is the team's biggest high school signee since Billy Tubbs signed Damion Walker out of Dallas in the '90s, and later juco-transfer Lee Nailon in 1997. Talent-wise, Shepherd should be this team's best player since Kurt Thomas.

Throw in the return of forward Amric Fields, who missed all of last season with a torn ACL, and TCU has enough talent to be a thorn for the Big 12. They're not ready to win, but they are in a position to compete and be close.

Johnson is not saying he is going to have four freshmen starters, but he will have four freshmen are going to play a lot. Johnson is confident he has players who can win.

"It's going to be hard (with so many freshmen) but it's not an excuse. Younger guys play more now," he said. "There were six or seven games we got to the four-minute mark and it was close and we didn't get it done. I'm not blaming them. Now when we get to those points, I can't leave them alone, you have to find a way."

For the few who followed this team last season, they saw a team that grinded on opponents and played down to the low 50s. That is not Johnson's preference. He wants to play. Winning in college basketball usually requires 70.

He had no choice last season to slow it down and pray his team could keep it close. Once Fields went down early in the season, the only genuine Big 12 caliber player he had was point guard Kyan Anderson. He can play at any speed.

"We can get out and play well because we have people who can rebound and better skill people," he said. "What we have now we can play faster with certain people because we can shoot the ball."

Johnson is not trying to win any popularity contests. This is a hard-driving man who is unafraid of his opinion. He is not for every kid. But his track record from Nevada to Stanford to LSU says he can win.

"The third year has been when we kinda taken off," he said. "But I can't wait that long."

TCU was 11-21 last season, and 2-16 in the Big 12. If it can sniff .500 this season, and seven conference wins, call it a major success.

If this class matures, and Johnson signs or two more legit players, he should have enough to make a run at a winning record in his third year.

Given the money the school is spending on the program, this can happen. TCU is no longer such a bad job.

09/29/2013

SAN DIEGO, California - Now that USC athletic director Pat Haden woke up from his Stupid Sleep and fired football head coach Lane Kiffin late Saturday night in Los Angeles, he will be soon looking for a replacement. This is a major story out here in SoCal as Kiffin had become to 'SC what Mack Brown is to Texas, except far more toxic without the skins.

Unlike Mack, whom people like, it didn't help that Lane behaved like a spoiled ass.

As expected, Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin is a hot name being tossed around to take over one of the biggest jobs in the country. It's a great job when things are right, and hell when it's not.

If the call comes, Sumlin would be an idiot not to take the interview. 'SC is SoCal's pro team, and the much better job than rival UCLA, which Jim Mora Jr. has done a nice job turning into a good program.

'SC is the Hollywood job. Players want to go to the University of Spoiled Children, for so many obvious reasons from the program's tradition to its load of attractive coeds.

Sumlin needs to take this call if for no other reason than to scare the hell out of every single Aggie booster, as well as Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman. You don't pass on leverage like this. These are the interviews where your salary goes up as well as your assistants, and you secure in writing every single facility toy you want.

Sumlin would be foolish to take the 'SC job right now. The NCAA's scholarship reductions that it levied for violations committed in the Pete Carroll era have a lasting effect.

College football has become all about windows, and none of them are large. Right now A&M is in the good window while rival Texas' window is broken. It is Sumlin and A&M that are landing the hot recruits, and quarterbacks, while Texas is waist-deep in infighting over the status of head coach Mack Brown.

Campbell told Mark Berman of Houston's Fox affiliate: "Nobody likes to get fired or leave a job, but things happen. I'd go on record and say 'yes I think it's time.'

"I'd just say this, I take my hat off for USC for what they've done. They didn't mess around with it. They just said 'let's do it now.' I think at some point our university's people are going to have make a decision."

This is not good for UT, but genius for all things Maroon and White. UT is a mess of Bevo flop.

Sumlin should squeeze this for as long as he can, and then leave when his window begins to close. Which it will.

An interview with 'SC will result in the raise he wants, and in theory guarantee the Aggies will keep their hot coach a little longer.

Once the window begins to close, that's when Sumlin should go to the NFL and give that a try. That's what Chip Kelly did.

If it doesn't work out for Sumlin in the NFL, he can always return to college. Maybe the 'SC job will be open.

09/28/2013

The Big 12 conference is terrible wide open, so there is a decent chance that the conference champion is going to have two conference losses. Somewhere Mack Brown is throwing a party at this thought.

No team that loses at West Virginia - looking at you T. Boone State - should win a BCS conference title.

Locally, TCU is not good as originally thought because its quarterback is simply too erratic. The defense is Big 12 legit, but the offensive line isn't there yet. Neither is the QB. The problem for head coach Gary Patterson is that he needs QB Trevone Boykin's feet to make that line look a little better, but that same QB is not accurate enough with his throws.

Boykin throws a tremendous deep ball. Everything else is an adventure. It may not change everything, but he has been hurt by the departure of wide receiver Josh Boyce to the NFL.

In three games with the New England Patriots, Boyce has no catches. This does not mean he should have stayed at TCU. He had earned his degree, and leaving was a smart move.

His departure has created a hole, however, that the likes of returning receivers Brandon Carter, Cam White or LaDarius Brown have not filled. It may not help that Boykin remains an erratic thrower, especially on the intermediate routes, but his receivers have not been getting enough separation.

In the blowout win against SMU on Saturday in Fort Worth, freshman Ty Slanina and Florida-transfer Ja'Juan Story made the plays that the likes of Carter and Brown should be making.

A three-year player at TCU, Boyce knew what he was doing. He made Boykin look better than he was, and he commanded the best defensive backs which created better matchups for Brown, White and Carter. They have to win their matchups.

We heard that Boykin was dramatically improved, but what we have seen thus far is a guy who looks similar to last season. If his receivers don't give him a little more help, expect the results to be the same to last season as well.

09/16/2013

Any doubt that Art Briles is anything other than a bad, bad man should be ejected after what he has done at Baylor University. Between his time at Stephenville High School, the University of Houston and now Baylor his legacy as one of the better coaches in the country should be intact.

There is a reason why his name is floating among the many to replace Mack Brown at Texas, whenever the money brokers in Austin decide to push Mack upstairs.

He is to Baylor what Gary Patterson is to TCU. Art has made Baylor legit, and nationally relevant.

Now the time has come for Briles and Baylor to play somebody for real outside of the conference.

On Saturday, No. 20 Baylor (2-0) will host Louisiana-Monroe in Waco in the Bears' third guarantee game of the season. The "Guarantee" works both ways - the visitor receives a nice check, and the home team receives a win.

Every single building team does this - loads up on a weak schedule in order to pad their record and reach a bowl. Coaches call this "scheduling for success", i.e. - play crap. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder could write a book on the subject.

Since Briles arrived in Waco in 2008, he followed that method. It works, provided your team wins. If your team is bad enough, it doesn't always work - ask Kansas coach Charlie Weis.

There was a time in Waco, like when Briles arrived, this plan routinely blew up in Baylor's face.

Baylor is winning now, and now it needs to play a real team. Not this Wofford, Buffalo stuff to entertain the home crowd and pave the way to a guaranteed bowl berth. Give the good people in Waco and at Baylor a real non-conference opponent it can sink its teeth into.

"We play our schedule whomever that is; we respect everybody we play," Briles said on a Big 12 conference call last week. "I don't think it would be earth-shattering news who is supposed to win and everybody thinks is going to win doesn't always do that. We respect everybody we play regardless of what their perception is."

Ahhh yes, the proven line of "They could always beat us." They could, but they shouldn't.

Schedule a home-and-home with a real team, preferably one from a BCS conference. Note - Duke does not count.

The counter to this argument is that schedules are made 1,000 years in advance, and that Baylor and Briles were stuck with these opponents. That holds water, until you look at Baylor's future non-conference opponents:

09/12/2013

WACO, Texas - If you have not had the chance to make it down the absolute hell pit that is Interstate 35 in central Texas ... don't. This is the worst highway ever.

But if your life takes you this way, it's a good chance to see the continued amazing progress that is the Baylor University athletic complex.

Using the river as a natural backdrop will make this new stadium stand apart from every other football stadium in Texas.

As you can see from these photos, the new Kevin Steele Football Stadium next to the Brazos River continues to come along at a healthy pace. When it is done, it will complete the incredible physical transformation of the Baylor University athletic department.

Hate on Baylor if you insist, but what the good people at Baylor U have done here with their facilities is impressive.